The Joy Of Predictive Text On The E71

By now we are all well aware of the size hit that the E71 has taken vis-a-vis the E61i, the obvious ramification being the much smaller keypad. This in itself, is reason enough for the prospective E71 buyers to worry and fret, especially for those with big thumbs, such as myself. Like I said before, it is taking me time to adjust to the smaller layout but slowly I am getting better.

The one thing on that front that is helping me no end is the predictive QWERTY input that Nokia has debuted with the E71. As of today, I simply love it but for the first one hour, it was a pain and I really had to stop myself from simply turning it off. But as it began to automatically learn local words and present me with auto completions and even correct my mistakes, I started appreciating its presence. This post, takes a look into what predictive/corrective QWERTY input has to offer.

PREDICTIVE INPUT

This part goes without saying, the phone predicts what you are trying to type and attempts to suggest options. If you feel the suggestion is the word you want, just hit the spacebar and you won’t need to key the rest of it in.

That’s it. The usual T9 dictionary words are already present and the software automatically learns new words as you type them. There is no need to hit ‘Spell’ and then type, like in the T9 entry mode.

CHOICE OF WORDS

There are occasions when there is a smaller word and also a larger one and both start with the same alphabets. In such a case all you need is to key the first few alphabets in and hit ‘UP’ on the ‘D’ pad to be presented with a list of options.

There are also time when a particular word needs to be used frequently yet the suggestion the phone gives is of a different variant. This is also easily fixed by keying in the desired word a few times manually and from the next time onwards, it becomes the default option.

AUTO CORRECT

This is God sent for people like me who have large thumbs. In my effort to type quickly I constantly hit the wrong keys on the keyboard and if I’d have to hit backspace and correct all errors manually, I’d go back to a larger QWERTY or even T9 faster than I’d be able to type FAIL. Fortunately that’s not the case here and the E71 happily fixes spellings for me and enables typing on a much faster clip than would be ordinarily possible otherwise.

For those times when you actually want to write something specific and the phone feels you’ve made a mistake, hitting ‘UP’ on the ‘D’ pad replaces the ‘corrected’ word with that you had typed.

CONCLUSION

For me personally, if the E71 didn’t have predictive and auto correcting text input I’d find it very hard to use and possibly not give it a second look. Again, fortunately that’s not something I need to worry about.

What this experience with the E71 has also done is to leave me wanting this very same thing on the E90. Due to the fact I am typing on a very small keyboard through the day, at times when I use the E90, the much bigger keyboard feels like absolute bliss and I can’t help imagine what it would be like with predictive text.

As of now, I will still abstain from passing a judgement on the E71’s keypad as I want to give myself about two weeks of full blown usage before I make the call, anything less won’t be doing justice to one of the best Nokia devices ever.